Jazz drummer Peter Ypma played with The Dutch Swing College Band, Rob van Kreveld, Trio Pim Jacobs, and - for more than 25 uears - jazz vocalist Rita Reys.



Peter worked with jazz greats like Art Pepper, Monty Alexander, Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster.



He formed his own jazz band Peter Ypma plus Eleven in 1990. He also worked as a teacher at the Rotterdam Conservatory.



Peter Ypma was sixteen when he bought his first drum kit and decided to quit his education at the Hague Thorbecke Lyceum. A year later he played at the Holland-America Line, was introduced to the American jazz scene and played in New York.



After he graduated as classical percussionist in his hometown The Hague in 1962, Peter Ypma traveled to Australia and New Zealand with the Dutch Swing College led by Peter Schilperoort.



Next he went to Berlin, Germany for a year to play as big band jazz drummer for Sender Freies Berlin.



Back in the Netherlands Peter Ypma played with the Vara Dansorkest, the Metropole Orchestra, Rogier van Otterloo and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plus several small jazz groups.



In the eighties Peter Ypma started as a teacher at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he devoted himself to percussion lessons and to the further development of the department of light music. In Indonesia, he worked on the design and development of the conservatory in Jakarta.



Peter Ypma died on July 29,2013. He was 71 years old.